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I spent several weeks researching WQHD panels and eventually settled on this one. I must say I was skeptical at first due to all the reviews stating that the panel often shipped with dead/stuck pixels. After receiving mine I can confirm there are no dead/stuck pixels, just an incredibly beautiful display.

I've always owned 720 and 1080p panels in the past, so of course this one will look especially amazing. So how do I tell if it's a quality panel? Well, according to all the professional reviews i've read(and from the old eye test) this monitor ships with fairly accurate colors. With a little tinkering, you can have it looking fantastic in just a few minutes. sRGB mode means professionals can tune this thing to perfection with pinpoint accuracy. While I have not done this myself (I use this monitor solely for performance gaming) it's certainly a nice feature if I ever decide to professionally calibrate this thing. Asus includes their other staple presets like Standard(my choice for gaming), Theater, User, and the previously aforementioned sRGB mode. This monitor also features a "trace-free" mode which helps eliminate ghosting artifacts which, in my opinion, is a welcome addition that some of my older Asus monitors did not include.

Since i'm not a professional graphic designer or anything like that I can't comment on performance in those areas but one area I can comment on is gaming. In a nutshell, this monitor is stunning while playing any modern PC game. I have specifically played Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Black Ops 2, Borderlands 2 and the Witcher 2 on max settings and the detail is nothing short of amazing. The extra pixels add a dimension in gaming that I simply have not experienced before. Textures are so crisp that Anti-Aliasing is not even required. My previous monitor was 120hz 2ms response time so I was a little concerned about ghosting/lag during intense online FPS play but i'm happy to report that isn't an issue here. Was my 120hz monitor somewhat smoother? Sure, but the discernable difference in minute. Gameplay feels very natural on this monitor.

The one thing you will need to run games at max settings+2560x1440 resolutions is a monster graphics card. I have a GTX 680 2gb card and I can run all games on max with the exception of Anti-Aliasing. As I stated before AA isn't needed as much with the higher resolution but that doesn't mean it's not wanted/useless. I can usually get away with 2x or 4x MSAA(plus FXAA) but any more than that and my FPS drops below 35 and thus becomes unplayable for me. 3+ GB of VRAM is needed if you truly want to max games out at 1440p. Just something to consider for people looking at this monitor for high resolution gaming.

The only real knock I have against this monitor is the button layout/menu control scheme. It can be quite annoying to try and navigate/change values because the arrow buttons aren't next to each other and the functions not clearly labeled. User options can be considered minimal compared to some other models out there(such as Samsung's monitors) but that's not too big a deal because it ships looking pretty decent already. This may be an issue for some, however.

Overall I would recommend this monitor to just about everyone, and especially gamers like me. The price is fantastic compared to most on the market and the build quality is certainly better than the similarly priced korean models (although some may refute this, there is always something to be said about having a real warranty). Not only is the panel fantastic, but Asus also includes connectors of every kind in the box. That was certainly an added bonus for me.